The real school bus problem

September 10, 2016

Why are all these school bus problems suddenly cropping up? No drivers. Autistic kids left at the side of the road. Whatever happened to the day when the person driving was someone who’d been doing the job for years and the company was local and had been business and served the community for years.

Then the Liberal government decided to go to competitive bidding. The contracts went to the lowest bidders – i.e. the school bus company that paid the least to their drivers. That resulted in the contracts for busing in the hands of one or two multinational corporations.

School bus companies in small towns that had been in business for years shut their doors. I think that’s a terrible shame. Those drivers took pride in their work. They knew their kids. The knew the ones who needed a bit of extra help and whose parents were who.

Yes, it meant lower costs. For now. The big companies were able to eat the losses for a while. But I wonder how long it will be before they hike their rate and we’re left with the worst of all worlds.

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I’m a bus driver and you are wrong…good drivers are quitting because the board is cutting costs and are treating drivers like ping pong balls tossing us all over the city with constant route changes longer hours and packed buses etc. Nobody is asking us why….we make good wages but the stress is not worth the money…been doing for 10 yrs. and every year getting wors. It’s the board not the companies or drivers